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Exclusive video interview with Alex Gurney: Another generation to enjoy

April 18, 2012

I had a good chat with Grand-Am Rolex Sports Car Series racer Alex Gurney a couple of days ago. He stopped by our offices to help promote the Detroit Grand Prix this summer and shared stories about what went right with his racing in Detroit and what has gone less than right.

What went right: He had a chance to flog a Cadillac CTS-V coupe around the course before all the cement walls are put in place to keep racers on the course. He said sight lines are really different without catch fencing and barriers getting in the way. All I could do was agree.

Then he shared a tale of his first race experience on Belle Isle. It was in a Barber Dodge open-wheel racer. He had qualified well and was warming up his tires on the circuit's backstretch. He saw the racer in front of him pull out and fling the car back and forth, sending smoke into the air, doing burnouts.

“That's really cool,” Gurney said to himself, and set off to emulate the move before lining up on the grid for the start. As the racing gods would have it, he flicked the car sideways one way, flicked it back the other, and--BAM!--eased that baby right into the wall! His father, Daniel Sexton Gurney, only one of the most famous American racers of all time, was in the paddock, where Alex's crew applied copious amounts of duct tape to the nose and sent him off to race. Gurney finished 12th, and that was the last time he pulled that prerace maneuver.

Gurney talked about the much-hyped DeltaWing project, something the Gurney All American Racers shop has undertaken to build, and boasted that he was the first one to drive the car. He is a test driver of sorts, so when Dan's Alligator was built--a wild, recumbent motorcycle--and in development, Alex tested that, too.

If you spend time with Alex and know his parents, you see that he has a wonderful, warm combination of his father's mischievousness and his mother's calm. Evi and Dan Gurney are two of the most elegant people in racing today. Evi will charm anyone of any age, man or woman, with her wit and intelligence. Dan can look at you over his magnifying reader glasses and laugh a laugh you know he's honed honestly over the years.

Alex, a 37–year-old father of two little girls, is a nice man. He gently reminded me how relatively young a man he is when he said that he hadn't had a chance to watch his father during Dan's racing career--he had retired by then--but saw him compete in the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach Celebrity Race. His father came from well back of the pack, back where they start the real racers, with a 30-second handicap to overcome, to pass the celebrity leader on the last lap. It could even have been the last turn. Alex, with obvious pride swelling in his 10-year-old chest, saw the celeb later and said, “My dad beat you!” That was when Knight Rider star David Hasselhoff, who insisted on wearing his driving suit around the track all day long, turned to young Alex and said, “I beat myself.”

Well, as if that wasn't enough of a gut punch, I told Alex that I was in that race, too, along with Ana Alicia--there's a “Where is she now?”--Parnelli Jones, Lorenzo Lamas . . . oh, those were the days.

I wish Alex lots of luck this season. I have a new Gurney to cheer for.

Dutch Mandel
- Dutch Mandel, Autoweek’s editorial director and associate publisher, has been with the company for 29 years. A second-generation car journo, he grew up with exotic cars in the garage. Among his many feats is a chef for a racing team and automotive consultant on the Pixar movie CARS and CARS 2.
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